


Pinky Promise

by bluepheonix



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Loneliness, Memory Alteration, Naminé (Kingdom Hearts)-centric, Naminé feels things more deeply than Nobodies should, Post-Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories, because Chain of Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-17 20:48:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18106190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluepheonix/pseuds/bluepheonix
Summary: “Would you rather remember your life from before, or your time in Castle Oblivion?”There wasn’t much use in asking the question. As much as it pained her, Namine already knew what Sora’s answer would be.





	Pinky Promise

Before she asked her question, Naminé felt her heart stop. No—that wasn’t quite it. The sensation was closer to the feeling of having a rug pulled out from under her feet. She was still suspended in midair but knew that gravity would soon slam her into the ground.

“Would you rather remember your life from before, or your time in Castle Oblivion?” 

There wasn’t much use in asking the question. As much as it pained her, she already knew what Sora’s answer would be—or what any sensible person’s answer would be, for that matter. It was foolish to place any of her hope in the prospect that Sora would choose the fabricated memories of their time together over his real friends. 

(Yet that didn’t stop her from hoping anyways.)

Sora paused before answering, tilting his head to the side, as if he were appraising the forced smile on Naminé’s face. Her cheeks hurt, but she didn’t want her own feelings to interfere with Sora’s decision. 

(Feelings--She was thinking like him now.)

She had interfered in Sora’s life enough already, to the point where the boy who stood in front of her was but a mere shell of his former self.

(Just like she was.)

If she let any of the loneliness that was constantly gnawing away at her insides slip out, he might just make a decision that he would come to regret.

“If I choose to put things back to the way they were before, what would happen to my memories of you?” His voice was strong, but when it echoed throughout the chamber, Naminé heard it quiver.

“You would forget about me too.” The words tasted acidic.

The Sora who entered the Castle wouldn’t have been the type of person to answer a question with a question. No, he was the impulsive type—a person who could boldly make any choice and stick to it if he was following his heart. 

This choice would have been an absolute no-brainer for the Sora who was willing to lay down his life for his friends. Naminé supposed that she would know that as well as Sora himself. She had seen him do that very thing countless times while rifling through his memories over the past few months. He had given enough motivational speeches to rival a person who did so for a living and always had the fight to back them up. She had watched sacrifice his own heart for Kairi and drag Riku--the real one--back from the brink of being consumed by total darkness, after all.

“Oh,” was all Sora said to her. No comforting, or declaration of protecting her. Just a single empty word. It was an empty word fit to address an empty being like herself.

The Sora who stood in front of her was different. He was more introspective and seemed to always have a wary glint hidden in his eyes. Though he would still smile and chat happily like the Sora from before, he would suddenly stall the act whenever he thought Naminé wasn’t watching.

Instead of making a rash decision, he stared somewhere far off into space as the cogs in his head turned and turned. With so many of his memories missing, he was no doubt trying to consult what little he had left to try and piece together how he would have approached the situation in the past. 

(Naminé would know, because she wrote him that way.)

She found that she couldn’t look him in the eye anymore—she couldn’t bear to see the look of pain and betrayal that seemed to always lurk somewhere behind Sora’s carefree façade. It only surfaced when he was looking at her anyways.

Again, that was only a natural reaction. Memories could be considered a person’s most precious treasure—especially for someone like Sora who thrived on his connections to other people. She had stolen the sunsets shared between friends and the experiences of traveling the galaxy only to replace them with shoddy knockoffs. 

To Sora, she was both the art thief and counterfeiter. What was worse to forge than the memories that defined a person’s identity? 

The thought stung, because Naminé had come to really care about Sora. How could she not? When delving into a person’s life so deeply, it was impossible for Naminé to not notice the smallest quirks about who Sora was. She knew the exact lilt of his voice when he was teasing his friends, the rhythm he tapped his fingers to on the desk when he was stuck on a question in class, how he would give himself a few words of encouragement in the mirror every morning, the way his eyes would soften whenever he looked at—

Naminé shook her head quickly to the thoughts of the past that were beginning to cloud her head. That Sora was long gone. Sure, she could bring him back, but there was no way he would look at her that way unless she went back and tampered with his memories again.

(It was honestly tempting.)

Sora seemed to suddenly flicker back to life. He rocked back and forth on his heels. Despite how much Naminé had changed him, his fidgety nature somehow always remained intact.

“It’s just—” his mouth flapped open and shut a few times as he tried to grasp the right thing to say. 

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m not really sure if I can trust you after all of this.” Each word pricked Naminé like small needles digging into her skin. 

In that moment Naminé was tempted to weave a tapestry of words. She wanted more than anything to take back the confession about manipulating Sora’s memories and continue the charade of being an estranged childhood friend. She wanted to make excuses--but, at the same time, she wanted to rush Sora into choosing to repair his memory. That’s what would be best for him. 

“I know,” came out instead. Her voice was becoming strained as she struggled more and more against her tightening throat.

A small wrinkle appeared between Sora’s eyebrows. There was hurt, hesitation, and a whole cocktail of other emotions in his eyes that Naminé couldn’t even begin to dissect.

She wanted to run away.

(She couldn’t do that anymore, she was already in far too deep.) 

While she had begun her time in Castle Oblivion as a prisoner, Naminé’s unyielding compliance with the Organization’s plans made her no better than a co-conspirator in the end. She’d silently complete whatever tasks were given to her even without a threat or incentive. 

Manipulating Sora through his memories wasn’t her idea to begin with but—

(As awful as it sounded, she would be lying if she said that she didn’t enjoy watching Sora swear his undying devotion to her.)

Maybe if she’d really cared about Sora she would have put up some sort of resistance--for his sake, at least. If only she could have had the strength to defy Larxene’s taunts and Marluxia’s gruesome promises of what would happen if she didn’t cooperate with the Organization’s schemes. Then Sora wouldn’t be forced to make this decision, and she wouldn’t have to watch her only friend fade away before her eyes. 

She wondered if Sora still considered her a friend. 

(Of course, he didn’t. Not when she had been the person who singlehandedly ruined his life.)

That thought was the stone that finally broke down the dam holding back her tears. 

So much for being strong for Sora’s sake.

All she could do was watch as her tears began to dot the floor and listen as her choked gasps echoed against the high ceiling. 

She had been close—so close—to letting Sora go, but in the end, she was too weak once again. It had seemed that the Organization’s fail-safe in getting to Sora was Naminé herself, and the shadows of emotions that preyed on her much more aggressively than the other Nobodies. They knew that once they had given her someone that really, truly cared for her she wouldn’t be able to let them go. She couldn’t go back to shouldering that suffocating feeling of loneliness on her own anymore. 

She really couldn’t, she’d rather di--

“Hey, Naminé.” Sora broke the silence suddenly, and extended his hand out to her, lifting his pinky finger. He looked at Naminé expectantly until she hesitantly did the same. Her finger was trembling, but as soon as it linked with Sora’s, it was as if all her anxieties had started to thaw. His light made her feel so warm, even if it was only a flicker of what it once was.

He made her feel so whole.

The scene mirrored a memory Naminé had fabricated—a promise between two childhood friends on a cool summer’s night. They had sat with their feet burrowed into the sand as they made a promise to always be with each other against a backdrop of a meteor shower. Though there was no water to be seen in the monochrome halls of Castle Oblivion, when Naminé strained her ears, she thought she heard faint sound of waves lapping up against sand.

“Let’s watch the stars together for real sometime.” 

Naminé wiped at her tear-stained face with her free hand, before finally meeting Sora’s eyes that glimmered like sunlit water. She couldn’t speak, so she just nodded.

“It’s a promise, alright?”

As they stood there, fingers linked together, Naminé felt the weight that seemed to be always pushing down finally lift off her chest.

For the first time, her smile was real.

**Author's Note:**

> Something I wrote to try and kick some writer's block. 
> 
> I've always really loved Naminé as a character, but I'm not really sure if I did her justice here. I like to think that her emotions impacted her more than the average Nobody because of the strange circumstances of her creation.
> 
> I re-finished re:CoM recently so basically I'm emo now.


End file.
